225
The dates given under the names of the vessels
are the dates of the letters-of-marque which
have been found for them. In some cases the
papers have disappeared. In one or two instances
they may never have existed.

1. Sloop GENERAL
SMYTH of St.
John, N.B. A sloop, with one mast, like the
sloop-yachts of to-day, and no larger than
many of these. She was named for Major Gen.
George Stracey Smyth, Lieutenant Governor
or President of the Province of New Brunswick.226
What letters-of-marque she had beyond the
Governor's good name I have
not seen, and I have examined nearly all
that were issued—crackling parchments,
with seals the size and thickness of sea-biscuits.

But the General Smyth was among
the first provincial privateers at sea in
1812; perhaps the first. In ten weeks she
made four prizes which brought £7,119 in
prize money. Then she vanishes—possibly
upon the chilling discovery that her well-meant
activities were unauthorized by the Admiralty.
Whitehall was very slow to act in 1812.

Her first prize was the brig Penelope, of
St. John's, Newfoundland, which she recaptured
from the American privateer Orlando, August
13th, 1812. The brig Reward of
Salem, another prize, was well named. She
was a huge merchantman for her time, 590
tons, ten times the General Smyth's bulk,
and she sold for £5,232, which more than
paid all costs connected with the privateer
in her apparently short life.

Three commanders are named—Joseph
Rideout, George Raymond, and a Capt. Borlas—and
two prize-masters: Edward Freeman, sent in
with the Fortune, August 28th,
and Wm. Mitchell, with the Lydia, October
24th.

A Capt. Rideout, of St. John, was master
of the New Brunswick schooner Young
William, which, at the end of a trying
passage from the Danish West Indies, in March,
1813, rescued the mate, the owner, and four
seamen from the sinking Spanish schooner Safarina. This
vessel had been plundered by a French picaroon
in November, and drifted helplessly all winter,
until the last rat in the hold had been eaten
by the starving crew. Then the captain died,
and was eaten by his men. The survivors drew
lots, and five sailors had been killed and
devoured when Rideout came to the rescue.227
Capt. Rideout was married in St. John,
N.B., on April 3rd, 1813, to Miss Frances Sturmy, third
daughter of Mr. F. Sturmy.

Her owners: Enos Collins of Halifax, in
association with John and James Barss, Benjamin
Knaut and Caleb Seely, all Liverpool privateersmen,
and Joseph Allison of Halifax.

Her captains: John Freeman.
Joseph Barss, the most famous.
Caleb Seely, ranking next to him.
Lewis Knaut.

Canaling Cape Cod, a work which had to
wait a century for fulfilment, was suggested
as a remedy for the terror of the blockade
caused by this one privateer; and it was
said that the losses she inflicted on American
commerce in two cruises alone would have
paid for this project.

She was the first Nova Scotian privateer
to get to sea, and she fought and harried
to the war's long end. Her escapes, her exploits,
her disappearances, her triumphant return,
are a saga worthy of the Viking scalds. An
attempt is made to log them in one section
of this book.

228
John Patch and Siphorus Cole were among
those killed in the dangerous adventure of
privateering.

3. Schooner NONSUCH, of
Halifax. Not finding a commission for her
one is tempted to class this vessel with
the famous " H.M.S. None
Such, three decks and no bottom," but
she is said to have been a " small
schooner mounting five guns with a crew
of thirty men which arrived with
two valuable ships " in August, 1812 . This
was before commissions were granted against
American commerce. The name may
be a disguise
for the Liverpool Packet, which
sailed from Halifax immediately upon the
news of war coming in.

4. Schooner FLY, of
St. John's, Newfoundland. Said to have
sent in an American brig and two schooners
in August, 1812. Commission not found.

5. Brigantine AMELIA, of
Pictou, N.S. Not mentioned in the
prize courts, but reputed to have been
built and outfitted by Pictou men for the
war.

6. Sloop BRUNSWICKER, of
St. John, N.B. This was the American revenue
cutter Commodore Barry, of twenty-five
tons, captured by H.M.S. Maidstone and
H.M.S. Spartan, July 19th,
1812, and bought by the province
of New Brunswick and manned for protection
against American privateers. Twenty volunteers
from the shipping in the harbour of St.
John and several citizens229
reinforced her crew for a cruise in company
with H.M. schooner Bream, November
21st, 1812, and they drove
four privateers out of Passamaquoddy
Bay. The Brunswicker returned
on November 24th and was laid up. It is
not apparent that the province secured
privateer commissions for its cruisers,
as Nova Scotia did in the case of the Gleaner.

7. Schooner HUNTER, of
St. John, N.B. Successor to the Brunswicker as
the province's privateer chaser. She
accompanied the Bream on a cruise
down the Bay of Fundy, December 16th,
1812. Privateer-chasing was no picnic.
American privateers were just as great
a menace to our commerce as ours were
to theirs; and like wolves in a pack
their courage rose as their numbers increased.
From the Acadian Recorder :

"St. John, N.B., Jan. 7, 1814—The Landrail cutter,
Lieut. Rochefort, was one of the vessels
which took the last convoy to Castine (then
in British possession). On her voyage thither
she fell in with five American privateers,
which she engaged, and after a desperate
battle of two hours' continuance succeeded
in beating them off. According to accounts
which reached Castine the Americans had
a great many killed and wounded. The force
opposed to the Landrail was the Charles
Stewart, of Boston, 10 guns; Cumberland, of
Portland, 4 guns; Fame of Thomastown,
4 guns;
a schooner, name and force unknown; and
Crowninshield's sloop (the Jefferson) of
Salem. No less than eight American privateers
were known to be hovering about Castine
and the Bay of Fundy."

Brave little Landrail, of
four guns! She was a King's cutter of the
Royal Navy, and despite her classification,
schooner rigged. She was captured once,
by a very large American privateer, but
was retaken.

8. Schooner CROWN, of
Halifax, February 2nd, 1813. Tiniest
privateer commissioned; so small the
little boys 230 in her crew bumped their heads against
her deck-beams. She has a chapter to
herself.

9. Schooner RETALIATION, of
Liverpool, N.S., February 10th, 1813.
Nova Scotia sea-captain's expression
of patriotic resentment—and a
successful one. Once the Salem privateer Revenge, and
before that the John and George. She,
too, has a chapter of her own.

Her owners: Thomas Freeman and Snow
Parker, of Liverpool, N.S., associated
with John Roberts, James Gorham and
Gordon De Wolfe, of Liverpool, N.S.

Her commanders:

Thomas Freeman
Benjamin Ellenwood
Harris Harrington
Wm. Jones Potter

Her crew: James Knowles and Stephen
Harrington, lieutenants; Alexander More,
Joseph Burnaby, James Dolliver and James
Harrington, all of Liverpool, N.S.;
and these prize-masters, several of
them veterans of the Liverpool
Packet and other privateers:

10. Brig SIR
JOHN SHERBROOKE, of
Halifax, once American privateer Thorn, February
11th, 1813. Finest privateer of the
provinces-278 tons, eighteen guns, 150
men. Her commander a veteran who did
everything in navy fashion, co-operated
with the navy, and had the same respect
as a naval officer. Her career as a
privateer short and glorious, with a
score of prizes in three months. As
an armed merchantman very successful
until her fiery end near the close of
the war.

Owners: Enos Collins, Jos. Allison,
of Halifax; Jos. Freeman, John and Joseph
Barss, sr., and Benjamin Knaut, of Liverpool,
N.S. She has a section to herself in
the book.

11. Jebacco-boat RATTLER. Cape
Ann smack captured by the Sir
John Sherbrooke in March, 1813,
and
used by her as a tender, capturing
the American schooner Valerius and
sloop Betsey among others.

12. Sloop DART, of
St. John,
N.B., May 4th, 1813.
Daring New Brunswick privateer. She
also has a chapter of her own.

13. Schooner MATILDA, of
Annapolis Royal, May
4th, 1813. Fifty-ton spitfire from
Annapolis Basin whose rivalry with the
largest and finest privateer of Nova
Scotia resulted in bluenose boarding
pikes
meeting across the hatches of an American
prize—as told in Chapter VII.

Her commander, John Burkett, jr.
Her owners: Messrs. Thos. Ritchie,
Wm. Baillie, John Robinson and John
Burkett, all of Annapolis Royal.

She privateered with a fine-toothed
comb, taking at least thirteen prizes
in three months. Her list ends231

abruptly in August, 1813, with fisherman
victims from the Nantucket shoals. She
reappears as a cartel, arriving at Halifax
with English prisoners from Salem, July
16th, 1814.

14. Schooner RETRIEVE, of
Windsor, May 21st, 1813. " A staunch
sea-boat, nearly new, and a remarkably
fast sailer," according to advertisements
for her sale at Elisha De Wolfe's wharf
in Windsor, N.S., April 30th, 1814.
On May 21st, 1813, Silas Crane, her
commander, was

" by these presents authorized
to set forth in a warlike manner the
said schooner Retrieve, of
55 tons, having four carriage guns,
two 12-pounder carronades, one q-pounder
long gun and one 4-pounder gun, 40 muskets,
10 pistols and a crew of 40 men."

Silas Crane and Wm. Young, of Falmouth
or Horton, N.S.,
near Windsor, were the Retrieve's first
owners. Thos. Leonard and Messrs. Starr
and Shannon, of Halifax, were associated
owners when William Allen became commander,
September 21st, 1813. By warrant of
July 9th, 1814, Wm. Young, of Windsor,
early owner, became commander. Edward
Crane went as lieutenant at one time,
and John Moore as gunner. Prize-masters
and prizes they brought in, to Halifax
or Windsor, were: brig Christina, June
10th, 1813; James Wilcox, sloop Betsey, June,
1813; Loran Fox, schooner Valerius, the
prize the Sherbrooke lost,
July 6th; Job Card, sloop Hannah, July
10th; James Forsyth, brig John
Adams, July
11th. These captures were all made
under Stephen Crane. Towards the end
of 1814 the Retrieve fell
a victim to the famous Fox, of
Portsmouth, N.H., and was burnt at sea.

It is manifest from the "Coppy
of the schooner FLY'S commishum
exam & approved of by me Enoch Stanwood," a
terrible scrawl written out for the
protection of a prize crew of two men
placed on board the American sloop Packet, of
Salem, that the office of captain's
clerk was not filled by a skilled practitioner
on board the Nova Scotian privateer.
Yet the bold Enoch had a clerk of some
sort, it would appear, for his signature
is in a different hand from the body
of the statement. This said :

" State of Massachusetts, Cranberry
Harbour

" June 17, 1813.

" This is to certify all whom
it may concern that on the 17th June
at 6 p.m. of the Clock in the afternoon
the schooner Fly was standing
into Cranberry Harbour and discovered
a Sloop at anchor. Stood towards her
and at Which time the Sloop got anchor
Wayed and stood up the Harbour. The Fly gave
chase and Fiered five Shots Beforne
she hove two. We sent a Boat on Board
the Sloop and took her in Charge and
stood down the Harbour for Sea. Brought
the prisoners on board in number Two
one by name of Thomas Bumper who proved
to be Captain of the Sd. Sloop and a
Passenger the name of Mr. Richardson.
By questioning the Captn. he Said the
Sloop was owned by Mr. Wallace of Salem.
We demanded his papers his reply was
that he had sent his papers on shore
in his Trunk at the Time we were in
Chace. Said Sloop's name is 234
the Packet and Cargo consisting
of Forty Cords of Wood and three Quintals of
Dry Fish and Burthens Ninety Tons. Sent in
charge of Joseh Ellis.

" ENOCH STANWOOD Capn. of Schooner Fly."

Maybe not a literary man, but bold enough
to steer into an American harbour, fire five
shots as he chased an American vessel up and
down, and carry her out to sea under the noses
and muskets of the Massachusetts militia. This
first prize of his was recaptured by the American
privateer Fame, and recaptured for
the Fly again, with three of the Fame's marines,
by the Matilda, of Annapolis Royal.

The day after taking the Packet Enoch
Stanwood sailed into Owl's Head harbour in
Maine after a fleet of seven coasters. Four
he drove ashore. Three he captured, and out
he sailed with them, mooring for the night
in a cove in White Island. But the countryside
had been roused, and a hundred volunteers crept
to the shore in the darkness, and as soon as
it was light enough to see they began firing
on the Fly from all sides. She cut
her cable and ran, leaving her prizes behind,
but she saved all her prize crews but four
men.

After
this misadventure Enoch Stanwood, commander
of the Fly, like his great namesake " was
not." Perhaps he was killed while valorously
fighting his way out of the hostile harbour.
The Acadian Recorder's reference
is inconclusive but ominous :

"We
learn from a gentleman direct from Wiscasset
(Me.) that the four men belonging to the Fly privateer (late Stanwood)
who were in the prizes retaken at White Island
were in the jail at that place, all well, but
confined to narrow limits and poor fare."

Messrs. Harding and Hill got a new commission
and a new commander for the privateer on the
6th of July, 235
1813. Elkanah Clements, jr., was the man,
and within a fortnight he was harrying the
coast of New England even more vigorously
than Enoch Stanwood, who was said to have
captured six schooners and sloops off Marblehead
in June. In five days in July Elkanah Clements
(whose name hath a Liverpool smack) sent
five prizes into Yarmouth. The last was the
schooner Friendship, whereof the
prize-master was Peter H. Dieuaide, a fine
old name of French piety. In August young
Elkanah made another swoop.

" Newburyport, Aug. , 2I--A Cape Ann
boat came in this morning with fourteen prisoners,
men, women and children, put on board from
a prize to the Fly, British privateer.
The sloop Dolphin, from Portland
for Boston, with thirteen passengers, was
fallen in with and captured by the Fly off
the Isles of Shoals. Soon after the U.S.
brig-of-war Enterprise hove in
sight out of Portsmouth. Capt. Clements,
of the Fly left it to the option
of the prizemaster of the Dolphin to
release the prize (and escape in the Fly) or
retain her, and the officer decided on the
latter, and succeeded in carrying her off.
Next day the prizemaster put the prisoners
on board a boat and stood off with the sloop
for Nova Scotia. The privateersmen of the Fly treated
the people of the Dolphin well,
giving them up their trunks without a search."-Acadian Recorder's correspondent.

With the vengeful Enterprise swooping
down on him Capt. Clements generously first
gave prize-master John N. Sinnott, of the Dolphin, a
chance to return on board, and then spread
his wings and fled. For eight hours the Enterprise pursued.
In the chase the Fly settled for
a moment on the large American brig Diamond, which
happened to be in her way. Flinging James
Wier, prize -master, and half a dozen on
board, Capt. Clements ordered her for Yarmouth.
She was too tempting to pass, for with her
cargo of molasses she was worth $20,000.
But the delay was fatal. The Fly, so
short-handed that even 236
her lieutenant, John N. Sinnott, had had
to go as prize-master, was unable to elude
the Enterprise as the chase continued,
and she was captured.

Both the Dolphin and the Diamond eventually
reached Halifax, on the same day, after reporting
at Yarmouth.

" Ship Jerusalem, 28
days from Havana, for Boston, detained by
H.M S. Majestic, anchored at the
Beach (Halifax) on Wednesday evening. About
9 o'clock the brig Diamond, prize
to the privateer Fly, arrived.
In passing the Jerusalem she was
hailed and ordered to heave to and immediately
after two muskets were fired into her. She
was hailed a second time and ordered to come
under the ship's stern, but the wind being
light, and but few hands of the prize crew
to work the vessel, some time was spent before
they could veer ship, when two 12-pounders
were discharged at her. The ship then sent
her boat on board and took out the prizemaster
and one man, kept them on board the ship
all night, during which time the officer
used the most abusive language towards them,
and actually ordered his men to Hang the
d d rascals up at the yard arm.' Does not,"—asked
generous Tony Holland, of the .Acadian
Recorder—" such conduct
deserve to be noticed? "

Probably a drunken prize-master from the Majestic showing
his little brief authority to a prize-master
from a privateer. The navy, from Nelson down,
professed to despise privateering, but privateersmen
sometimes set the navy a better example.

16. Schooner STAR, of
St. John, Newfoundland, Possibly confused
with the Star, of St. John,
N.B. " In May, 1813, the Star, of
St. John's, Nfld., returned to that port
from a cruise of twenty-two days, having
taken five prizes, all of which were safely
brought in." —Cruikshank's Colonial
Privateers.

17. Pinky WEAZEL, of
Halifax, May 28th, 1813. Sharp in the stern,
bluff in the bow, schooner rigged,237
hence the description; a type of schooner
now rare. She was small, but not the smallest
privateer; forty - five tons, one 9-pounder
and four 4 's, and two swivels; nominal crew,
thirty-five men, although she is said to have
sailed with only eight. George William Anderson
was her commander, and she was a tradesmen's
venture, owned by Joseph Hamilton, Wm. Bond
and Francis Muncey, Halifax grocers, and Wm.
O'Bryan, the Halifax sailmaker who took a
flyer in the Crown privateer as
well. Warrant dated May 2 8 th, 1813.

Prize-masters and prizes : Wm. Nickerson,
sloop Franklin, July 3rd ; Thos.
Perry (late lieutenant of the Crown) schooner Calson, July
6th; Sylvanus Brown, sloop Leonidas, July
7th ; Don Carlos, " Spanish " schooner
American-built, August 12th; and Wm. Smith,
who found $3,808 in six bags in the sand ballast
of the American schooner Minerva, of
Wiscasset, coming from Barbados with a British
license.

Prize-master Smith, per affidavit, told
the Minerva's captain the Weazels
had orders " Not to respect licenses,
but to burn, sink and destroy everything they
met under American colours, and that they
did not care a damn " (yes, the whole
naughty word, written out, and no blanks) " for
Sir George Beckwith, Governor of Barbados,
or his licenses, or anybody else." But
the prize court gave the Minerva back
to her American owners, sand ballast, specie
and all.

18. Schooner BROKE, of Annapolis
Royal, July 3rd, 1813. The Juliana Smith, shoal-draught
Boston privateer schooner of fifty-one
feet length, sixteen feet beam and five feet
depth, was to prowl from Nova Scotia to the
Gulf of St. Lawrence, for British ships bound
to Halifax, Newfoundland or Quebec. 238 " Whatever you receive either on shore
or at sea as supplies, even from your enemies," wrote
Benjamin Smith of Boston to Henry Cooper,
his captain, " pay for to a farthing.
Your prisoners you must treat with all the
humanity circumstances will admit; and should
the chance of war throw into your power any
female prisoners, I particularly request that
you will treat them with kindness and not
suffer the smallest indignities to be shown
to them."

That was the best spirit of privateering,
British and American; as far removed from
piracy as submarining is close to it.

The Juliana Smith was
captured by H.M.S. Nymph, May 11
th, 1813, bought by Phineas Lovat, jr., merchant,
of Annapolis Royal, and renamed the Broke in
honour of the great naval hero of the Shannon-Chesapeake duel.
Daniel Waid, her first British commander,
got his commission a month to a day
after Broke brought the Chesapeake into
Halifax in triumph. Waid made seventeen prizes
with the Broke, sending some into
Halifax and some into Yarmouth. Many he carried
off from under the guns of defending batteries.

Honest
John Ridley was one of those sent off in the
boarding boat with Lieutenant Henry Crooks,
of the privateer, to capture the sloop Freeport, anchored
close to the fort on Horse Island, Portland,
Me., August 4th, 1813. He made this modest
deposition :

" He
never saw her till he went on board in the Broke'
s boat, but the batteries from the shore
fired on them while taking possession of the
prize. She was steering for Portland when
first chased by the Broke and continued
steering for the land till brought to by the
shots from the privateer. He believes she
was bound for Portland, but as the batteries
were firing on them there were no questions
asked the sloop's crew in deponent's hearing
on this subject."

One
should say not. The Freeport had
run within half a mile of the blazing batteries
when she was brought239
to. The boarding crew had all they could
do to get her out of the bay without being
sunk. The Broke valiantly engaged
the fort to cover their retreat, and succeeded
in carrying off another coaster which she
had already taken, within a mile of White
Head.

Capt. Waid was succeeded by Wm. Smith, of
Halifax, September 27th, 1813. The Broke had
four 12 - pounder carronades, one long 9-pounder,
and two swivels, thirty muskets, two blunderbusses,
twelve cutlasses, and twenty-five pikes
for her crew of thirty-five men. Her prize-masters
included James Watson, James Hickson, Wm.
Williams, Richard Smith, of Killarney, in
Ireland, and John Miles. In her crew were
John Ridley, of New Providence, in the Bahamas,
James Babrican of Shubenacadie and Roger Williams,
a boy from Liverpool, in England.

19. Provincial sloop GLEANER, of
Halifax, July 9th, 1813. An American privateer
sloop, chased off the mouth of Halifax harbour
by H.M. brig Colibri, July 24th,
1812, and captured after she had thrown
six of her seven guns overboard. Taken into
the service of the province of Nova Scotia
she was refitted with five guns and Prince
Kinny was placed in command of her, with
Samuel Kimball, mate, and a crew of twenty
men. John George Pyke " owned " her
on behalf of the province, and obtained
a privateer commission for
her, but when Prince Kinny recaptured the
Annapolis schooner Sally from
the American privateer Industry, September
15th, 1813, he set an example to an avaricious
horde of fee hungry officials by waiving
claims to salvage.

20. Schooner GEORGE, of
Halifax, August 11th, 1813. With four barrels
of gunpowder and 300 rounds 240
of
shot in the hold she went out on August 27th,
1813, for a cruise of two months, but she made
only one prize, the Spanish two-decker San
Domingo, trading to Portsmouth, N.H.,
from Havana; and this, after much buffeting
by gales, the prize-master, James Boatland,
lost on the Jeddore Ledges on October 9th.
Thos. H. Mason, of Halifax, Geo. Hinns, trader,
Thos. Smith, the baker who owned the Crown, and
Joseph Schofield, merchant, owned the George. John
Gilchrist was her commander, and James Ledger,
late of the Sir John Sherbrooke, her
lieutenant. She had a crew of sixty men. She
was a vessel of 123 tons and mounted six 9-pounders
and two swivels.

21. Schooner STAR, of
St. John, N.B. Caleb Seely's command before
he graduated to the famous Liverpool Packet. Prizes
she made in 1813 were : sloop Elizabeth, August
25th, Wm. Vaughan, prize-master; sloop Resolution, Vineyard
Sound, September iith, Wm. McLeod, prize-master;
and the pinky Flower, September
14th, John Danby, prize-master.

22. Schooner WOLVERINE, of
Liverpool, N.S., August 20th, 1813. She was
the Tom or Thomas, of
Portsmouth, that captured the Liverpool
Packet, and with grim humour Joseph
Barss, sr., whose two sons were captured
with the Packet and were held
in Portsmouth jail, bought the American privateer
when a British man-of - war captured her.
His brother Thomas, and his sons James and
John, and Benjamin Knaut and Joseph Freeman,
all Liverpool shipowners and merchants, contributed
to the purchase. They renamed her the Wolverine, and
sent her privateering with a crew of eighty
men, under Charles William Shea as captain
and Andrew Little,

241
lieutenant. She was armed " to the teeth," with
five 9 -pounders, two 6's, four 4 's, one 2 4
-pounder, four swivels, besides pistols, pikes,
cutlasses and muskets. She sailed on September
sth, and fifteen prizes were credited to her by
December loth; but John Roberts, jr., had succeeded
Charles Wm. Shea in the command on November 8th.

John Roberts did not love his enemies, nor did
his enemies love him. Letter from S. B. Edes,
commanding American privateer Rambler, to
Charles W. Green, merchant of Boston, June, 1814—the
gentleman who had owned the Wily Reynard:

" This morning fell in with and
captured the British brig Madeira. Capt.
John Roberts, bound to Nova or Dam'd Scotia, took
from him 8o casks Madeira wine, a good article,
with olives and prunes and some dollars, &c., &c."

The plundered etceteras included Capt. Roberts'
small boat, so that he had no resource left in
event of shipwreck; all his light sails and studding
sails and gear, so that the vessel was helpless
in light winds ; his carpenter's tools and marline
spikes, so that no repairs could be effected ;
his logline and glasses, preventing him from keeping
a reckoning; his cabin furniture, clothing, $
3 oo in cash, poultry, provisions, and the ship's
cables. The Madeira was left a wreck
by the privateer, and had the further misfortune
of being struck by lightning on July 7th, when
her mainmast was split. Her crew would have perished
of thirst and starvation if she had not fallen
in with H.M. brig Arab on July11th.

Prize-masters with Capt. Roberts when he commanded
the Wolverine were : John Morine, John
Freeman, Andrew Little, Jacob Randall, Siphorus
Cole and Isaiah Barss, one of the brothers captured
in the Packet. Apparently Joseph Barss,
jr., commander of the Packet, took the 242 Wolverine to the West Indies on a
trading voyage in 1814 , but she was privateering
again as late as January, 1815. She was lost at
sea after the war closed.

23. Schooner SHANNON, of
Liverpool, N.S., September 2nd, 1813. No better
name was ever bestowed on British fighting ship
than Shannon
; and, after Joseph Barss, no more successful
privateersman ever commanded a Nova Scotian letter-of-marque
than Benjamin Ellenwood, who captained this schooner
when twenty-five years of age. She was the captured
American privateer Growler, of Salem,
renamed by her purchaser, Snow Parker, of Liverpool,
in honour of Capt. Broke's famous frigate and
her victory of June 1st, 1813. The privateer Shannon measured
146 tons and had five guns and a crew of fifty.
Benjamin Ellenwood had only six men left when
he manned out her sixteenth prize on November
2nd, 1813. In all, nineteen of the prizes he made
reached port safely. John Brown, one of his prize
- masters, succeeded to the command of the Shannon in
June, 1814, and made three prizes before going
to the Rover. The Shannon's first
lieutenant was James Knowles, and among her other
prize-masters were Lothrop Knowles, Henry Hopkins,
Joseph Bartlett, who later commanded three privateers,
Thomas Stubbs, John Gardner, James
Godfrey, Theodosius Ford, George Teale, Nicholas
Anderson, and Jacob Brown. Gallant Capt. Ellenwood
was murdered on Dolby's wharf, Halifax, in February,
1815, on the eve of sailing home for Liverpool.

24. Lugger INTREPID, of
Guernsey, October 10th, 1813. Here we have the
craft beloved of French and English smugglers
and extolled by Cooper in Wing and Wing. The
rig was ever rare on this side
243
of the Atlantic. How an English Channel lugger
came to seek letters-of-marque in Halifax is not
known to the writer, but on October 10th, 1813,
Capt. John Lenfestry, " a British subject
and native of Guernsey," obtained from the
Nova Scotia Court of Vice-Admiralty a commission
for the lugger Intrepid, which he commanded,
and which was owned by Mr. Peter Le Lacheur, of
Guernsey, merchant. The Intrepid was
of sixty-seven tons and had six 6-pounders and
a dozen muskets and cutlasses. A Channel Islands
lugger, possibly, which had crossed the Atlantic
in search of prizes, and registered in Halifax
so as to qualify for captures made in America.
The Intrepid had a large supply of
shot, 1000 rounds, and but sixteen hands. No
prizes reported at Halifax.

25. Sloop DART, of
Liverpool, N.S. Rigged like her New Brunswick namesake.
Henry Fader or Feader was her commander. After the
capture of the New Brunswick Dart the
Nova Scotian one arrived in Liverpool on November
3rd, 1813, from a cruise of which the Acadian
Recorder laconically remarks : " Taken
six."

26. Sloop HARE, of
St. John, N.B., November 29th, 1813. Thirty-eight
ton sloop, with a pair of six - pounder guns, ten
muskets, fourteen pikes and five cutlasses for
a crew of twenty-five men. James Reid, who afterwards
commanded the Snap Dragon, took the Hare to
the New England coast in mid-winter and made
prizes. He was succeeded by James Godsoe, who
first went with him as lieutenant. Capt. Godsoe,
in the Hare, drove an American privateer
of four guns on shore in Mispeck Reach, in March,
1814, and captured her with a boat's crew of
five. In working out of the Reach the five men
from the Hare grounded the privateer
on a ledge. Here244
they
were surrounded by the Maine militiamen and
the American privateersmen who had escaped from
the prize. After a fight in which John Carlow,
of Waterford, in Ireland, one of the Hare's crew,
was killed, the prize was retaken. One of the Hare's prize-masters
was John Snaith, sent in with the brig Recovery, January15th,
18 1 4 . Another was Daniel Way (possibly Waid,
who commanded the Broke). He brought
in the sloop Hero, January 13th, 1814.
The Hare was owned by Noah Disbrow,
John Clarke and Hugh Doyle, all of St. John, N.B.

27. Schooner ROLLA of
Liverpool, N.S., June 10, 1814. In the year 1820
a weed-covered and water worn hulk was hurled
on the beach of Essex County, Massachusetts, torn
from the ocean's bed by a great gale and extraordinarily
high tide. It was without spars and almost without
shape; so long submerged that it seemed a sea growth
rather than what had been a ship, but on one broken
plank were the remains of carven letters—" R
0 L L 1 ." The last letter might have been
an " I " or the left half of an " A." The
broken plank was the first and only enlightenment
upon an event which had devastated the Nova Scotian
town of Liverpool five years before.

The
pick of the privateering profession went out with
the Liverpool privateer schooner Rolla when
she sailed on her last cruise, in January, 1815.
This was weeks after the treaty of peace had been
signed, but two months before the news of it reached
Halifax. Every third man on board was a captain.
Fifteen in her crew of forty-five were masters
of vessels, and most of them seasoned privateersmen.
Capt. John Freeman, who gave up the Liverpool
Packet early in her career, had later sailed
245
the Rolla in two successful cruises.
He went along on this occasion, apparently as a
prize-master; for Capt. Joseph Bartlett, of the Lively,
Minerva, and Saucy Jack in turn,
had assumed command of the schooner. The Rolla on
this cruise sighted an American schooner named
the Comet on the 13th of January—date
of ill-omen for pursuer and pursued—and,
after a chase of nine hours, caught her off Martha's
Vineyard. Capt. Bartlett selected Capt. John L.
Darrow, Capt. Robert Slocomb, and Capt. Eli Page
for the duty of taking her back to Nova Scotia,
and in the winter's dusk the privateer and her
prey parted company, the prize steering for Liverpool.
It came on to blow hard that night, the wind developing
into a furious gale as the Rolla's lights
vanished. The captured coaster rode it out, and
seven days later the three men of the prize crew
worked her into Liverpool.

Weeks passed. No more prizes came in from the Rolla, and
they began to fear she had been taken; months,
and the war was over, and still no word. They sought
in vain for news of her along the Massachusetts
coast. Slowly twenty-two wives in Liverpool realized
that they were widows, and almost a hundred children
were orphans. The Rolla had been lost
with all hands, forty-two privateersmen,
and the nine men taken out of the Comet and
kept as prisoners.

Capt. John Freeman's widow lived in Liverpool
till she was ninety years old, always waiting for
her sailor to come home from sea. Capt. Seth Freeman
was another privateersman who perished. He had
been prize-master in the Sherbrooke and
the Liverpool Packet. Wm. Hayes was
another veteran lost; and Nathaniel Gorham, a lad
of eighteen, was yet another of the Liverpool victims.
No privateering port had ever so severe a blow
as this. 246
The Rolla was
Baltimore-built, an American privateer originally,
captured December 10th, 1813, by H.M.S. Loire
; a sharp, narrow vessel measuring 117 tons
American and 132 tons British, seventy-nine feet
long, twenty feet two inches beam, and eight feet
three inches deep in the hold. She had one long
eighteen-pounder and four 12-pounder carronades
; too much gunmetal on deck, perhaps. Joseph Freeman,
of the Sherbrooke, James R. De Wolfe,
John Barss, James Barss, Benjamin Knaut, Enos Collins
and Joseph Allison, all well-known privateer owners,
had shares in her. She got British letters-of-marque
June 10th, 18 1 4 , and cruised successfully for
six months, from Cape Ann down to Crane Neck in
Long Island Sound, sometimes in company with the Liverpool
Packet. Some of her prize-masters who brought
in earlier prizes and who may have perished with
the others on that last wild night were: Samuel
Freeman, brig Hope, June 29th, 1814;
Wm. Puttman, pinky Bee, July 3rd; John
Mullins, pinky Boxer, July 8th ; Isaiah
Barss, schooner Cynthia, December 2nd;
Wm. Cook, sloop Gleaner, December 3rd
; James Freeman, jr., schooner Fair Trader, December
6th; Eli Page, who survived, through being sent
home with Capt. Darrow was prize-master of her
first prize, the schooner Charles, June
26th, 1814.

William
Darrow, brother of John Lewin Darrow, the prize-master
who escaped the disaster by being sent back with
the Comet, was the first lieutenant
of the Rolla, but he did not go in her
for that fatal cruise; yet he, too, was lost at
sea soon afterwards, with the ex-privateer Wolverine. After
the war she went into the West Indian trade, and
vanished with all hands.

Two of the Darrow brothers, John Lewin and Robert,
went to the West Indies in September, 1814, with
the Liverpool Packet's prize schooner Julian, purchased
in 247
Halifax. John was captain and Robert the mate.
Coming home from St. Vincent with a cargo of rum
the Julian was captured by the American
privateer David Porter.

" You," said Capt. Fish,
of the David Porter, to Robert Darrow, " will
have to go with the Julian to whatever
port in the States the prize crew can get her into.
We want you for a Davy-man "—the member
of the original crew of a prize retained to make
affidavit before the prize court as to her nationality. " The
rest of you," he continued, including Capt.
John Darrow with a sweep of his arm, " will
have to stay aboard here with us as prisoners.
I'm not going to have you recapturing your vessel
from the prize crew."

Robert Darrow looked at John and John looked
at Robert.

" Now that's too bad," mourned Robert,
the mate, " for here I am barely able to feed
myself with this crippled hand of mine, and who's
to fend for me all the way home? "

" You'll be less likely to try to retake
the vessel," laughed Capt. Fish. " That's
why I'm sending you as the Davy - man."

" All right," said Robert resignedly. " But
you might send that brat of a cabin boy of ours
along, to look after me. He's only one more mouth
to feed aboard your privateer. I tell you what
I'll do. Send him along and I'll help your prize-master
work up his sights and so forth."

The American privateersman hesitated.
He was short
handed. Four greenhorns were all he could spare for
a prize crew. But they would be enough to knock this
Nova Scotian on the head if he attempted a rescue.
And
if he was willing to help navigate the vessel he
would
have a shorter and more comfortable passage, that
was all.
" Take the youngster," said he, and Robert
Darrow and
fourteen-year-old Tommy Knight were forthwith transferred 248
back to their own vessel from the deck of the
privateer. Then the prize steered north. The privateer
stood east.

Asa Weston, of Duxbury, was a prize-master after
Robert Darrow's own heart. He loved the Julian's cargo
of rum, and he loathed working up reckonings. He
rejoiced to find this lame-handed Nova Scotian
so helpful with logarithms and cosecants. He was
surprised that you had to make so little westing
to reach Portland—but the late mate of the Julian proved
conclusively that this was so. All the time Robert
Darrow was edging the Julian north and
east for Nova Scotia.

At dusk one evening the " Davy-man " laid
down his lead pencil with a satisfied sigh.

" We should sight land to-morrow," said
he, pushing over the much marked chart.

" Grand," said the prize-master. " Just
as I thought. Well, suppose we celebrate ! "

So they broached a puncheon of rum and made merry
in the cabin.

" No place for you, boy," said Robert
Darrow to the little Liverpool lad. " Up on
deck with you, now, with some liquor for the poor
fellow at the helm. Then go forward and turn in.
But bring the can back first."

On Robert Darrow the fresh air they dreaded had
a marvellous effect. Immediately he was as sober
as a judge, and his lame hand was healed. 249
" Here they are, sir," whispered Tommy
Knight, producing a pistol, a cutlass, a
hammer, and a handful of nails.

" Good boy ! " whispered Robert back.
Then bang ! bang ! bang ! bang ! he beat on the
slide top, spiking the whole thing down so that
only a narrow slot remained open.

" What you doin'? " demanded the one
privateersman on deck at the helm.

" Shut up, and do as you're told," said
Robert Darrow savagely. " Now, keep her away
nor'-east-and-by-east, and steer a straight course,
or you'll never see to-morrow's sun ! "

The privateersman looked up from the glare of
the binnacle to contemplate the hose-like mouth
of an old - fashioned horse pistol.

The crowd in the cabin drank themselves under
the table, oblivious of all that had happened and
was happening. The late November morning dawned
on a weary helms ­ man; a weary man with a
pistol and cutlass, eyeing him narrowly; and a
child curled up in a greatcoat.

Soon there were sounds from below. The imprisoned
prize crew, under the spiked companion, had raging
thirsts. The man with the cutlass and pistol had
control of the water-butt lashed on deck. " Tell
'em, Tommy," said he, poking the cabin boy, " that
we'll trade 'em pint for pound. Let 'em pass out
some biscuits and cheese and a bit of bacon, from
the cabin stores as we need 'em, and we'll give
'em a little water—if they're good ! "

There was much cursing from below, much silence
above. Soon the sea biscuits came popping out through
the slot, and some cheese and bacon and coffee,
and empty flasks. The flasks went back, full of
water; accompanied by the announcement that if
any attempt was made to break through the stout
cabin bulkhead bullets would stop it 250
Robert Darrow hoped to be in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia,
before dark; but with maddening perversity the
wind came whooping in from the northward, blowing
a gale. It was four days and a half before he could
close with the land. Yet all the hundred hours
that tough young Nova Scotia seaman, with the little
boy to help him, worked the ship, bullied the privateersman
on deck into helping him, and bartered water for
bread with the rebellious crowd in the cabin. On
the fifth day, he worked the Julian past
the White Horses of Jeddore, and on to the flats;
turned his prisoners over to the militia, got some
fishermen to help, and sailed his schooner into
Halifax.

The first man he met, as he came out of the Court
of Vice-Admiralty, was his brother John, who had
been transferred from the David Porter into
another prize full of released prisoners, and had
hurried to Halifax on the wings of the wind !

Four hundred dollars from the insurance company
(which would have lost £2,064 on the Julian's cargo
alone) was Robert Darrow's reward; Tommy Knight
shared.

28. Schooner LIVELY, of
Liverpool, N.S., July 4th, 1814 . Next to the Crown, or
perhaps the Thinks-I­ to-Myself, smallest
of the privateers of the War of 1812. Thirty tons
measurement, thirty men, and five guns, probably
a nine-pounder and four swivels. Joseph Bartlett,
of Liverpool, commanded her, and between July 4th,
1814, when she got her commission, and mid-September,
when she was captured by the Surprise of
Salem, she sent in ten prizes—trading sloops
from Long Island Sound, coasting schooners, and
Nantucket Shoals fishermen.

The Lively had only seventeen men
and one gun when captured. Capt. Bartlett either
escaped or was exchanged almost immediately, for
he was at sea again in October with the Minerva and
in December with the Saucy jack. He
was lost in the Rolla, in January, 1815.

29. Schooner LUNENBURG, of
Lunenburg, August 8th, 1814. The finding fifty
years ago of a leathern bag of Spanish dollars,
wrapped in sail cloth, under the sills of an old
barn on the farm of William Mosher, at Felzen South,
near Lunenburg, N.S., may have no connection with
this privateer, but the incident is recalled by
the vessel's name, the fact that the dollars were
dated from 1773 up to 1814, and the coincidence
of a Henry Mosher being one of the owners of the Lunenburg, and
the Spanish silver being found on the Mosher farm.
William Mosher had heard his father say that in
the old days—his father was born in 1785
and died in 1869—the privateersmen used to
come close in and frighten the people, and that
sometimes, quarrelling among themselves, they tried
to rob each other, and would hide the money on
shore. There are many Mosher families, and Henry,
part owner of the Lunenburg privateer,
was not, so far as is known, one who occupied this
farm. The first holder was Jacob, then David, then
William, then William his son, who as a little
lad found the first Spanish dollar, and is still
living. How much there was in the hoard is not
known; there appeared to be a bushel of the coins.
Some were scattered far, for rats had 252
devoured the leather and gnawed the canvas. Much
of the money was carried back to the West Indies,
where Lunenburg did a larger trade fifty years
ago than now. Some of the dollars, blackened with
age, and bearing the pillars of Hercules and images
of Charles III, Charles IV, and Ferdinand VI of
Spain, are yet in the possession of William Mosher
and his son Elam.

The Mosher name has long been honoured in the
annals of Nova Scotian seafaring. When the twenty-five
ton schooner Golden Hind, homeward bound
for Sydney, Cape Breton, with a Christmas load
of produce from Prince Edward Island, struck on
the rocks of Craignish, Inverness County, in a
December snowstorm in 1926, it was Capt. Wilson
Mosher, her master, who swam ashore with the lifeline
through three hundred yards of surf, rescued his
crew, and then swam back again to the vessel, " so
that he could be the last man to leave the ship,
in accordance with British traditions of the sea."

Thoroughly practical protest was made by Lunenburg
shipowners and sailors when a Lunenburg fleet from
the West Indies, convoyed by Capt. John Nicholas
Oxner's armed brig, was snapped up by a large American
privateer, attracted by the sunrise gun which the
brig fired to re ­ assemble her flock.

Capt. Oxner, Henry Wollenkaupt, Philip Rudolf
and Henry Mosher went to Halifax and bought a captured
American privateer of ninety-three tons and five
guns, " a long low craft and a very fast sailer." Judge
Des Brisay's description fits the Sherbrooke's prize,
the Portsmouth privateer Governor Plumer. The
indignant townsmen renamed their schooner the Lunenburg, and
sent her a-privateering, with a crew of forty-five
men. Two at least of her prize - masters, John
Arenburg, who brought the prize pinky Lucy into
Lunenburg September 1 5th, 1814, and Conrad253
Rhuland, who brought in the schooner Ranger, November
15th, were masters and owners of vessels which
had been captured by the raid on the West Indian
convoy. John Stewart and Thos. English were other
prize-masters.

The privateer had two captains, Joseph Falt,
jr., August 18th, 1814, and Thos. H. Chamberlain,
November 29th, 1814. Falt swept the seas of everything
he found under the American flag, from fishing
pinkies upward. The largest prize of the seven
he sent in was the schooner Minerva, of
Wiscasset. Bought by La Have Nova Scotians, enlarged,
rigged as a brig, and renamed the Lord Exmouth, she
was chased by the American privateer Fox as
soon as she left the La Have river. Off Rose Head,
near Lunenburg, her captain told his crew to pack
their clothes, for he was going to run her ashore;
but three boats, manned by thirty brave Lunenburgers,
put out and assisted the Lord Exmouth into
their harbour. Here she lay for three days, with
the hungry Fox leaping in vain at her
outside; and one black night she threaded the maze
of islands of Mahone Bay and the Sambro Ledges
and got safely into Halifax, where she was to complete
her cargo for the West Indies.

Capt. Chamberlain was the prize-master who had
brought in the Minerva. One of the prizes
he made in command of the Lunenburg was
the sloop Experiment, on January 21st,
1815. The sloop had ventured out from New York
with corn and flour for the inhabitants of Nantucket,
which island suffered severely from the British
blockade. No one on this side of the Atlantic knew
yet that the war was over. The Experiment carried
peace offerings to the Admiral of the British blockading
squadron.

" She sailed from New York bound to Nantucket
but to stop at the British squadron on the way,
which they did, and remained alongside H.M.S. Superb about
three hours and put on board a 254
quantity of caps or Welsh wigs for the use of
the British seamen to keep their ears from freezing,
and they also delivered on board some boxes of
candles and some apples. Deponent was received
kindly by Admiral Hotham and given a license to
bring some rum, hogs and stock from Nantucket for
the use of the British squadron."

Four hours after leaving the Admiral the Experiment was
captured by the Lunenburg, off Point
Judith. The prize court restored her to her owners.
It was not the first time she had ventured into
the lion's paws. She had carried a committee from
the Quakers of Nantucket in the preceding August,
and they had made arrangements with Admiral Hotham
that while their island remained in its state of
abhorrence of the war the inhabitants would be
allowed to bring in flour and grain and such necessities
of life through the British blockade.

The Lunenburg apparently changed hands
early in 1815, before the news of peace had been
received. She is reported to have captured three
American sloops and one schooner, as late as February
15th, 1815, when she is described as having only
three guns and sixteen men, and belonging to Annapolis.
She was offered for sale at
Halifax on March 27th, 1815—" the remarkable
fast sailing schooner Lunenburg, ninety-three
tons burthen, copper bottomed and copper fastened,
the sails nearly new, pork, beef, and stores, &c."

30. Schooner ROVER, of
Liverpool, N.S., September 23rd, 1814. Formerly
the American privateer Armistice, renamed
after the famous brig Rover, of Liverpool,
which fought and conquered the armed Spanish schooner Santa
Ritta and three gunboats on the Spanish Main,
killing fifty-three of the enemy without losing
a man.

The schooner Rover was of eighty-five
tons, five guns, and fifty men. Plain John Brown
late of the Shannon 255
commanded her, on her first cruise, and he took
thirteen coasters in three days. Capt. Thos. McLarren
(or McLarn) of Liverpool, took her out early in
1815 for another cruise, making five prizes. But
off the mouth of the Connecticut, on January 16th,
1813, while defending the sloop Betsey from
recapture by Saybrooke volunteers, Siphorus Cole,
the Rover's lieutenant, a veteran Liverpool
privateersman, was killed, and five of his barge-crew
were captured and marched to the jail at New London.
The volunteers had one man killed and one wounded.
The Rover came home with this bad news,
counter-balanced, to some extent, with the glorious
tidings of capture of the great American frigate President after
a running fight with H.M.S. Endymion. The Rover's prize-masters
included W. H. Pitts, brig Rachel, November
3rd, 1814; John Hopkins, schooner Ruth, November
9th; Isaac A. Allen, sloop Jane, November
12th; Cornelius Knowles, schooner Fox, December
5th; Wm. Owen, schooner Gift, January
26th, 1814.

Snow Parker, member of the Provincial Parliament,
was an owner of the Rover as well as
of the Retaliation and the Shannon.

31. The THINKS-I-TO-MY
SELF of Castine.
Perhaps a jebacco-boat, or even a " shaving
mill," a large whaler manned by a score of
sturdy fellows with oars and muskets, and a couple
of small guns to ensure a hearing for her when
she wished to speak with some hostile merchantman.
Not commissioned, as far as a search of letters-of-marque
shows; originally an American.

Castine was captured by a British force in August,
1814. 256
" English privateer Thinks-I-to-Myself, 2
guns, 20 men, captured by the Dash of
Portland and taken into that port."

The first quotation is from the Acadian
Recorder, the last from George Coggeshall,
an American privateersman who wrote a history
of the privateers in his time. By inference the
date of the capture by the Dash was
October or November, 1814 . Coggeshall gives
no further light, prize court records do not
mention the " English privateer," and
the reader's imagination will have to explain
how the craft got her name.

32. Sloop MINERVA, of
Liverpool, N.S., October 3rd, 1814. Sixty-four
ton single-sticker with three 4-pounder guns,
ten pistols, twenty muskets, twenty boarding
pikes, and a crew of forty-five men. She was
the command of Joseph Bartlett, of Liverpool,
who was also part owner, along with Joseph and
Thomas Barss and Andrew Webster. Capt. Bartlett,
who commanded the Lively, captured
in mid-September, 1814 , did not linger long
in American captivity, for his warrant for the Minerva is
dated October 3rd, and on a Sunday evening,
October 30th, he chased the sloop Eliza
Ann ashore
on Block Island with the Minerva, got
her off, and sent her into Liverpool with her
cargo of 1,500 bushels of corn. Isaiah Barss,
at one time of the Liverpool Packet, was
her prize-master.

33. Schooner TELEGRAPH, of
Halifax. No letters ­of-marque found but; "Halifax,
Oct. 28, 1814—Sailed, H.M.
brig Rifleman and ship Francis
and Harriet for New Brunswick and schooner Telegraph, on
a cruise.

If not a privateer the Telegraph was
a man-of-war schooner or naval tender.

34. Sloop DOLPHIN, of
Liverpool, N.S. Tender fitted out by the Liverpool
privateer Rolla, and
captor of the sloop Gleaner ten miles
west of Newhaven, December 3rd, 1814 . No letters-of-marque
for her found.

35. Schooner SAUCY
JACK, of
Liverpool, N.S., December 14th, 1814. American
schooner of pilot boat model, captured in the
Potomac by a British brig-of-war after her crew
had fled; sold at Pryor's wharf, Halifax, at
a prize-sale, November 29th, 1814 , to Joseph
Piscott Boyle, Halifax, merchant, Thos. Barss
and Joseph Bartlett, and possibly others, of
Liverpool, N.S. Commissioned December 4 th,
1814 , for a two months' cruise as a Nova
Scotian privateer; 100 tons burthen, three guns,
long nine-pounders, twenty muskets, eleven pistols.
Joseph Bartlett (of the Lively and Minerva) commander;
crew, forty-five men. The Saucy Jack which
attacked the St John Sherbrooke was
apparently a larger vessel, but may have been
the same schooner.

36. Schooner SAUCY
SIXTEEN, of
Liverpool, N.S. Perhaps a nickname for the Saucy
Jack. Records
of prizes condemned before the Court of Vice-Admiralty
do not mention either the Saucy Jack or Saucy
Sixteen, but James F. More, Queen's County
magistrate, who knew the privateers as a boy,
writing in 1873 said that the Saucy Sixteen was
owned by sixteen merchants and mariners of Liverpool,
and made one cruise of three258.
weeks'
duration which paid her owners dividends of
$1,200 each.

37. Schooner DOVE, of
Liverpool, N.S., January 24th, 1815. Neatly
named, for peace had been agreed upon and the
terms signed a month to a day before she received
her war-papers. The fact was not known in Halifax,
however, until March, 1815.

Joseph Cottingham Bates, merchant, of Liverpool,
N.S., was owner of the Dove, and John
Moody and Charles Hill, jr., of Halifax, her
sureties. She was a little square­ sterned
schooner of thirty tons, with one 4-pounder
gun and four swivels, like the toy cannons at
yacht clubs; and her total outfit of " spare
cordage " weighed
just eighty-four pounds.

James Harrington, of Liverpool, a namesake
of the Harrington pressed out of the Retaliation, commanded
her. He had a crew of twenty, and eighteen muskets,
twenty pikes and twenty cutlasses for them.
John Barker was his lieutenant. On February
10th, 1815, he brought into Liverpool the last
prize of the war, the American brig George, of
New Bedford, captured by the Dove off
Cape Ann Light.

Another olive leaf pluckt off by the warlike Dove ere
the waters of strife abated was the pinky Atlas, captured
off Chatham, Cape Cod, February 9th, 1815, and
brought in by John Harvey, prize-master. Although
the war was officially ended before these captures
were made both vessels were held, under the
terms of the peace treaty, to be lawful prizes,
and amply repaid the Dove's venture.